Posts Tagged ‘infanticide’

This past weekend, in New Jersey City, New Jersey, three teenage boys found a three month premature baby discarded by the trash. This child was found whimpering, with other trash, in a plastic shopping bag. This child still had its umbilical cord and could have suffocated. Keyshaun Wiggins, one of the boys who saved this baby, said they herd the baby whimper, and thought it was an animal. When they came closer they saw the baby’s hand moving. This child was found clearly alive, and yet some mother was so cold as to discard her baby like you would any piece of trash!

Why would a mother do this to her own child? How could a woman have a heart so hard that she could leave her own creation, her own living, breathing child as trash?

The answer to these first two questions is our society. After more than 40 years of legalized abortion not only is abortion completely accepted, it is common for others to encourage mothers to abort their children. The culture of abortion has turned the hearts of mothers away from their children. Every woman can choose to be a mom. Society deceives people into believing children are a choice, even after conception. The truth is the choice happens before conception.

Now that abortion has become so normal people are starting to take it a step further. Like the mother of this infant found in the garbage, some women are starting to feel that if it is okay to have an abortion and throw the baby, then it is okay to do the same to a newborn baby.

This is surely a sign of complete moral deprivation of society. This mother had a living breathing child and threw it away as trash! Not only that, New Jersey has a law saying that unwanted infants can be given to the police, fire department or hospital without consequences. This is more common than one may have thought. Since this spring, many mothers have thrown or flushed their new born infants. Our society’s easy acceptance of abortion must stop or this kind of thing will become even more common and more radical.

Kate is 14, and has just begun her freshman year of high school. Kate enjoys drawing, math, law and running. Kate’s law interest began two years ago when she participated in Junior Mock Trial. Since then Kate has decided family law is important and would like to do what she can to help other people understand the importance of the family and family policy.

By now you’ve probably read at least one article about the two British ethicists who wrote an article for the Journal of Medical Ethics where they argued that infanticide (killing a newborn infant) is acceptable – even ethical. The article has created a global firestorm. But as Paul Harvey might have said: “and now for the rest of the story…”

BioEdge, a pro-life/pro-family group based in Australia, broke the story and they offer some clarification:

Well, rejoice with us. BioEdge had its first world scoop. Last week, as far as I can determine, we were the first to pick up the publication of Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva’s controversial article in the Journal of Medical Ethics arguing that infanticide is ethically permissible. The news went viral and at last count a report in the London Telegraph had nearly 2,100 comments. BioEdge only had about 40, but at least we got there first.

The fallout from the article cannot have been pleasant for the authors. Dr Minerva says that she received death threats. “This was a theoretical and academic article. I didn’t mean to change any laws. I’m not in favour of infanticide. I’m just using logical arguments… I’ve received hundreds of emails saying, ‘You should die’,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

From a professional point of view, I feel less happy about my own nose for news. I failed to anticipate that newspapers across the world would reverberate with outrage. Julian Savulescu, the editor of the JME, was also astonished by the often-vitriolic response in blogs. Like me, it seems, he had been rather ho-hum about the whole business.

“The arguments presented, in fact, are largely not new and have been presented repeatedly in the academic literature and public fora by the most eminent philosophers and bioethicists in the world, including Peter Singer, Michael Tooley and John Harris in defence of infanticide, which the authors call after-birth abortion.”

I suppose that this is one of the problems of working in bioethics. You lose touch with the fact that most ordinary people think that arguments in favour of infanticide are not only seriously weird, but depraved and wicked… (Michael Cook, Editor, BioEdge)

So it turns out the authors were not in favor of infanticide but giving a synopsis of sorts of all the academic materials that exist on the topic. Those of us at United Families International and I assume Michael Book as well, believe that those who promote infanticide are morally compromised and need to be exposed. The Journal of Medical Ethics article went a long way toward doing that. We wanted to make sure that all of the details surrounding the story were shared.